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When Mary Crossan joins Ron Francis to assess candidates for the NHL, she isn’t there to judge skating ability or effectiveness of their slapshot. The Ivey Business School professor helps the longtime NHL general manager to understand their character – just as you should be doing, she believes, when interviewing your own recruits.
It’s been said that we hire for competence and fire for character. That applies in hockey as well. Her work focuses on 11 dimensions of character, such as drive, collaboration, temperance, integrity and transcendence, which covers commitment to excellence and future orientation.
Mr. Francis reached out to her when he was with the Carolina Hurricanes and the collaboration has continued during his tenure with the Seattle Kraken; she joins him at the NHL draft combine, where the future NHLers are assessed, and then later meets with coaches and those ultimately chosen for a workshop on how to develop character. “Most organizations don’t understand what character is, let alone how to develop it. So my job was not only to help them see what it was but then to have an interview or conversation that starts to reveal it in a player,” she says in an interview.
Strengths become apparent quite quickly in those conversations. She describes them as muscles the individual is exercising quite naturally and frequently. But she then probes to find what’s beneath – the source of, say, their drive or integrity – to help determine if it will continue to support them rather than turn against them and become what she calls an excess vice. She uses herself as an example: She is very decisive. But being too decisive results in the vice of impulsiveness. She may not hear what others have to say. So she needs to counter that with strengths in collaboration – being flexible, open-minded and inter-connected.
This work comes out of a study she conducted with colleagues into the 2008 financial crisis, when many large companies collapsed. The researchers expected to find the cause was lack of competence. They discovered the leaders were in fact highly competent but had bad judgment in their decision-making. “Character got implicated pretty quickly but nobody knew what it was,” she recalls. Subsequent research has offered that explanation as well as methods for improving character, countering the widespread assumption it is formed in youth and unchangeable. The work has also shown how powerful character can be in well-being and sustained excellence.
Using it to assess job candidates can seem intimidating. The gateway is to start with yourself, understanding and building your own character. “The more you do that, the easier it becomes observing it and identifying it in others,” she says. “It doesn’t become so scary.” Along with her daughter Corey Crossan, a research fellow at Oxford University whose background in kinesiology offered expertise in habit development, they have developed an app, Virtuosity Character, a customized program for developing character – going to the character gym, as they like to put it, on a daily basis.
You also need to change your thinking about job interviews. Normally we search for competence, through structured questions for each individual. We ask for examples of how the various competencies in the job description have been displayed in the past or might be exercised in future scenarios, which means the candidate can prepare and be coached in advance as elements of the interview template can be anticipated.
To understand who somebody is and how they became that way, you need to honour the uniqueness of the individual through unstructured conversations rather than pre-developed questions. “You want to know the person’s story,” she says. “You begin to explore their life story through the lens of these dimensions of character.”
In an article in MIT Sloan Review, she says it doesn’t matter where you start because character interviews are like the proverbial peeling of an onion, with layers emerging as you explore the person’s background. “For example, if you were to start with a broad question like ‘Why does the position interest you?’ you would then pick up on the various threads that would allow you to explore the dimensions of character. If a candidate talked about how innovative the organization is and how much they enjoy being innovative, the questions could pursue where those interests come from and the major influences that have shaped the person,” she writes.
The responses then become stepping stones to explore other parts of the candidate’s life story. She stresses that at no time are you asking directly about the dimensions of character. Instead, you are having a general conversation with the person about themselves. You need to look for signs of strengths and weaknesses in their stories. Look for displays of integrity, such as authenticity, transparency and candor, as well as humility and whether the person is reflective and self-aware.
Arrange for two to four interviewers. Although character interviews can be conducted one-on-one, when others participate they can provide a validity check on the observations of the lead interviewer and also take the pressure off them to ask all of the questions.
Character is crucial but it’s not front-and-centre in recruiting, promotions and leadership development. Yes, you want competence, but you also don’t want to be damaged and eventually have to fire for character. Her work gives a road map to guide you in this tricky area.
Cannonballs
- This is the third schema for interviewing I have looked at this year. Executive search consultant Richard Davis assesses intellect, emotionality, sociability, drive and diligence in his focus on personality. Consultants Barry Conchie and Sarah Dalton highlight five talents: Setting direction, harnessing energy, exerting pressure, increasing connectivity between people and controlling traffic by managing the pace and complexity of activity. Now Mary Crossan underlines 11 character dimensions: Accountability, courage, transcendence, drive, collaboration, humanity, humility, integrity, temperance, justice and judgment. Is it worth revisiting your own interviewing process in 2025 and making improvements?
- Consultant Donald Cooper suggests asking for 2025: In what existing positions would it make a big difference if you replaced mediocre or toxic staff with talented top performers? Also: What new key positions do you need to create and fill with expert top-performers to guide your business to where you commit to be in three years?
- In choosing between innovation projects to approve, the best approach appears to be having those involved in the decision using ranked ballots, research shows.
Harvey Schachter is a Kingston-based writer specializing in management issues. He, along with Sheelagh Whittaker, former CEO of both EDS Canada and Cancom, are the authors of When Harvey Didn’t Meet Sheelagh: Emails on Leadership.
